Why I Refuse To Name My Pokémon : Replay Value Part 2
Welcome to Replay Value! In collaboration with Aidan Moher, this four part miniseries will explore one of the most consequential games I covered in my book, Monster Kids: How Pokémon Taught A Generation To Catch Them All: Pokémon Yellow Version: Special Pikachu Edition!
Replay Value is a cross-newsletter series hosted by Aidan and myself where we’re each replaying a childhood favorite— Pokémon Yellow and Chrono Trigger, respectively—and asking each other pointed questions along the way. For the next three Fridays, you’ll track our progress in the game and get an inside track on just why we love these games so much. Head on over to Aidan’s terrific newsletter, Astrolabe, to check out his progress on Chrono Trigger. And consider checking out his wonderful book, Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West.
For this initial installment of Replay Value, I chose Pokémon Yellow, and this second part details the portion of the game from Rock Tunnel to the fight with Giovanni at Silph Co. (You can read Part 1, which runs from the beginning of the game through Vermillion City, here.) At this point in the game, your team is likely getting a little more cohesive than “Pikachu and the thing you caught to cover for Pikachu’s lackluster defense stats and inability to beat Brock.” You’ve decided whether you want to keep the gift Pokémon (Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle) on your team like Ash Ketchum did or just toss them in a computer. And you also go through Rock Tunnel, the deep, dark cave which basically says “Oh, you enjoy the breezy world of Pokémon, huh? Think you’re having a good time, huh? Think again. This one dude’s Graveler knows Self Destruct.”
Q&A with Aidan Moher: Part 2
Aidan: So, I gotta ask: Nicknames or no nicknames? (And, yes, I will be judging the value of our friendship based on your answer.)
Daniel: No nicknames. Naming them might accidentally cause me to become attached to them, and then I wouldn’t be much a vicious Pokémon warlord.
I’m kidding, sort of. So, while I have named them in stuff like Nuzlockes, I usually don’t. I think it all stems from my first playthrough of Pokémon Red. If you’ll allow me to stretch out on the therapist’s couch for a second, when I got my first copy of my first Pokémon game, I wasn’t very good. At video games. In general. Anything less than gentle handholding in the beginning tended to flummox me. So, when I mistakenly got led to the Charmander nicknaming screen, I panicked. In a flurry of button mashing and angst, I named the little guy “Fzzzz.” I didn’t want to name it “Fzzzz,” but that’s just what the gods of incoordination granted me. Fzzzz was a great friend, but he also left me with the nightmare scars of a beloved Pokémon naming gone wrong. Since then, every consideration of naming brings me back to the only time I’ve considered dropping Pokémon from my life entirely and hurling my Game Boy Color down a flight of stairs.
Aidan: Pokemon Yellow was a big evolution in design over the original releases, and Pokemon itself has grown up just as we've grown up as players over the last few decades. So, now that you're fairly far into Yellow, how do you find the experience of going back and playing the older Pokemon titles compared to the newer ones?
Daniel: They’re really fun! I’ve never really been someone that has found it hard to return to older games. Unless something is really, unbearably wrong with them, I tend to collect some manner of delight. Plus, I think the beating heart of my Pokémon love will always lie with the older games in Gens 1 and 2. They’re just what I think of when I imagine my perfect Pokémon game (or at least the closest thing to it. Surprise! It’s Crystal!) This doesn’t reflect poorly on the newer games at all, even if there are changes that I’m not too fond of. Pokemon has provided such a wide spectrum of experiences for me, and one of the best things about it is that, depending on what mood I’m in, there’s usually a main series title which correlates to it.
Aidan: Pokemon Yellow was heavily focused on Pikachu. If young Daniel could have picked any Pokemon to have its own version, what would he have picked? What about modern day Daniel?
Daniel: Young Daniel obviously would’ve picked POKEMON SLIGHTLY BLUE BUT ALSO KIND OF SILVERY GREY VERSION: SPECIAL DRATINI EDITION and just Wrap’d my way to a belabored victory.
Modern Daniel isn’t so picky. Like I kind of wanted to see what a Let’s Go game set in the Johto region would be. Let’s Go Togepi? Let’s Go, ummm, Shuckle? The possibilities are very much not endless!
Aidan: These older Pokemon games can be really expensive on the second hand market these days, and Nintendo doesn't always do a great job of making them accessible. Do you think it's worth it for new or younger fans to go back to the older games?
Daniel: While I don’t think it’s absolutely integral for fans to go back and play the older games in order to hurdle some imaginary trial of fandom, I think it helps. Especially because, in a social media driven world, the loudest and often the most extreme voice gets the most attention. So you constantly see headlines and YouTube video titles like “WHY GENERATION 1 IS ACTUALLY UNPLAYABLE!” and…it’s really not unless you’re setting out to kind of fool or break the game in the first place. But if you haven’t played it, you’re stuck between mass opinions of the earlier games either being the height of a nostalgic revolution or borderline garbage first drafts. Sitting down and being able to see for yourself gives you some helpful grey area to work with.
As for getting more releases of early games like we got on the 3DS VC? Yes. Absolutely. Watching older Pokemon games become the price of my mortgage isn’t exactly great for general accessibility.
Feel free to leave a comment before with your own answers to Aidan’s questions and subscribe to make sure you get the next instalment of Replay Value: Pokémon Yellow in your inbox next Friday!